Time to change overtime

LSU and Texas A&M played deep into the night of Nov. 24, and finally the Aggies won, 74-72 in seven overtimes.

Thriller, some called it. Instant classic, others said. Craziest game ever.

But the person who matters most had a different word. Enough.

Enough of endless overtimes. Enough of coaches not daring to win games. Enough of a bastard form of football trumping 60 minutes of the real thing.

So Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey said maybe it’s time to change the format. On the eve of the SEC Championship Game, Sankey said seven overtimes is not good for either team, no matter how much acclaim it receives.

And Sankey is right. College football overtime – giving each team a possession only 25 yards from paydirt – is a penalty-kick way of determining a winner. Unsatisfactory. But if you’re going to use that method, at least make it determine a winner. Don’t let it drift deep into the night.

Heck, if you’re willing to play as long as seven overtimes, just adopt the NFL overtime model and keep playing real football.

“In a way, we were fortunate that the sevenovertime game came on a week (after) when neither team played, but playing

essentially an additional half-hour of football in an incredibly strenuous environment should cause us to ask questions about are there better ways to administer ties at the end of regulation,” Sankey said. “If that game had occurred at a different time of year — let’s say we’re playing in the heat and humidity in September — the physical part of that game is even greater than we saw naturally occurring on a much cooler night.”

With the heightened awareness of safety for the players, no way can a seven-overtime game be justified.

So I go back to my idea of college overtime. Keep the same format, only don’t let any team kick to tie. You’re down three points, you’ve got to score a touchdown. You’re down six, you’ve got to attempt a twopoint conversion. That would allow overtime to accomplish what overtime is supposed to do – determine a winner.

Some say the team that gets the ball last would be at a disadvantage. Maybe so. But now, the team that gets the ball first is at a disadvantage. Every

team that wins the toss in overtime chooses to play defense first, which allows a coach to know exactly what he needs in overtime. Moving some advantage to the team that goes on offense first only balances the scale.

Sankey brainstormed some ideas with SEC media.

“Is it about placement of the ball?” Sankey said. “Is it about going for two right away? Did the ball go back farther than the 25 to begin? Do we require 2-point conversions on every attempt? Should there be a limit? We haven’t talked about ties in a while, and yet we still have them in our record books. Are there certain points we say a tie is a sufficient stopping point for this game rather than extending so long?

“Certainly, when we’ve had games in this league that have gone five, six, seven overtimes, those become memorable moments, but it’s worth asking the questions yet again.”

For unexplainable reasons, the SEC has had most of the marathon games of college overtime. There have been five seven-overtime games in major college football since ties were abolished in 1996. Three of the five have been

from the SEC – Arkansas-Ole Miss in 2001, Arkansas-Kentucky in 2003 and now A&MLSU. The SEC also had a six-overtime game in 2002 (Arkansas-Tennessee) and a five-overtime game in 2003 (Tennessee-Alabama).

“It’s exciting. It’s action-packed,” Lincoln Riley said of the college overtime system. “So I do think it’s good for the fans. The fact that you could end up in seven in them is a little iffy. The NFL, you are going to get longer drives and if you score a touchdown, then the other team does not get a possession. There are drawbacks to both. I guess the deal is you don’t get many of those long overtimes. That doesn’t happen very often. I prefer the college model just because everybody gets a fair shot at it.”

Yes, a fair shot to keep playing. Time for coaches to start earning their pay. Play to win. Go to overtime to determine a winner, not to play past midnight.